


Closer

by awfulcutlery



Category: Glee
Genre: Alcohol, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexuality, Bromance, F/M, House Party, Implied threesomes, Karaoke, M/M, Multi, Near Future Fic, New Year's Eve, Spin the Bottle, newer new directions, old new directions, rachel berry house party train-wreck extravaganza, references to past ryder/marley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 17:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1235284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awfulcutlery/pseuds/awfulcutlery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jake learns that Ryder is bisexual at yet another Rachel Berry house party train-wreck extravaganza.  WHAT WILL HE DO WITH THIS INFORMATION AND HOW WILL HE SHOW RYDER THAT HE ACCEPTS HIM THE WAY THAT HE IS?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closer

_9:00pm_  
The Directions, old New, new New, and newer New, were assembled once again in the Berry basement for an early New Year’s Eve party (before everyone went back to their new towns and cities for actual New Year’s eve). To honour this special occasion Jake and Marley had decided to be “on again”.

Puck was late to pick them up, as usual, so the party was already in full swing when they arrived. Rachel was summoning her guests one by one to duet with her on the small stage at the front of the room, but otherwise everyone was just drinking and catching up, scattered around the basement with its mismatched rec room furniture. 

Jake lead Marley over to the couch where Sam and Ryder were camped out with a tray of fancy-looking holiday baked goods. Jake accepted a beer and a gingerbread man from Ryder, allowed Marley to drape her legs over his lap (foolishly offering her feet up for tickles from Ryder), and proceeded to feel very content. That is, until the New Directions started to get rambunctious and party went the way their parties inevitably ended up going.

* * *

_10:15pm_  
“So, how was it kissing a boy, Ryder?” grinned Tina. 

Jake felt himself blush at the invasiveness of the question. Or maybe that was just because of the alcohol. He was about to jump in and tell Tina to lay off with the inppropriate stuff when Ryder shrugged and gave Tina a coy smile. Tina gave a shriek and rose to her knees, grinning and shaking Ryder by the shoulders.

“Oh my god, Ryder, you enjoyed it didn’t you?” 

“Hey, c’mon Tina. Leave him alone.” Jake started to say

Ryder laughed sheepishly and didn’t look at Jake. “Actually” he started “It wasn’t really a new thing for me.”

“ Wh- really? Tell!” Tina said, flopping back to the carpet. Marley made an interested noise and shot Jake an inquisitive look, lifting her head from where it rested on his shoulder.

Was Ryder just teasing the girls? He still didn’t meet Jake’s eye, even though Jake for one was pretty sure he was openly staring at Ryder. A few more people had turned their attention toward him, too, though the game of spin the bottle continued around them. Ryder finished off his beer before answering.

“There was another counsellor at that camp I worked at last summer - a guy.” he said “He was really cool, and we got on well, and...at the big end of summer party we, y’know.” Ryder’s audience waited in rapt silence for him to spell it out. 

Why hadn’t Ryder told him he’d hooked up with someone over the summer? Even if it had been a dude, that didn’t matter. Best bros told each other these things.

“You what?!” Kitty prompted

“We made out!” Ryder laughed “Geez, you guys need to chill. It wasn’t a big deal. I thought we were all supposed to be all open-minded and shit.”

“We are, we are.” Unique assured, placing soothing a hand on Ryder’s shoulder “This is just how you do share time. We feel like we don’t know you anymore! We need more details.” 

“Shirts or skins?” Sugar demanded

“It was summer. We hardly ever wore shirts to begin with…” Ryder’s response was drowned out by the delighted reaction of his drunken audience - Tina, Marley, Kitty, Sugar, Unique and her partner, Jess. (“Ok, how do I go about getting a job at this camp?” Tina was asking). Jake was the only one not giggling, and Ryder finally met his eye.

* * *

_11:20pm_  
“You’re being weird, dude.” 

“You’re being weird!”

Jake felt Ryder sigh more than he heard it over the blaring sound of Rachel and Quinn singing karaoke. He supposed that meant they were sitting rather close on this couch - one of those sad old couches that you only ever found in basements. Its rough material scratched against Jake’s arms and he thought that maybe he should have kept his jacket on. He opened his eyes and saw that Ryder was sprawled out so that his goofy feet (clad in socks which were striped and brightly coloured like something a jester would wear) were sticking out over the armrest and his head was propped up against Jake’s shoulder.

Jake didn’t feel like talking about this here, now, but booze made his lips loose and he heard himself saying “Why didn’t you tell me you hooked up with a dude? We’re supposed to be bros!”

“See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you.” Ryder said, gesturing vaguely

“You didn’t want to tell me because it would hurt my feelings?” Jake must have been more drunk than he thought if he was dropping the feelings word. 

“What?” Ryder struggled to push himself into an upright position “It hurts your feelings that I made out with a guy?”

“No!” Jake couldn’t tell if he was yelling “It hurts my feelings that you didn’t tell me you did.”

“Dude, ssh.” (Probably yelling, then) “I’m sorry, ok?” Ryder said quietly “I didn’t know how you’d react, you know?”

“What you think I’m some kind of fuckin’ homophobe? That stings, man.”

“No. I dunno. I didn’t know if it would change things.” Ryder took a swig from his drink and didn’t look at Jake. “Does it?”

“Of course you making out with some guy doesn’t fucking change things!”

“Not just that” Ryder said “Me being, you know. Bi.”

Jake took a drink too. This was a lot to take in. “Bi?”

“Well I didn’t make out with him just to be nice.” Ryder said irritably. 

“We’re supposed to know this kind of thing about each other.” 

“Well, now you know. So. Does it change anything?”

“We’re still best bros?”

“Dude.” Ryder sounded indignant. 

“Dude.” Jake needed to hear Ryder say it.

Ryder rolled his eyes and slouched back against Jake’s arm. ‘Yes, we’re still best bros.”

“Then it doesn’t change anything, does it?”

* * *

_10:30pm_  
Jake was thinking about that game Santana had wanted to play before spin the bottle: Who you would have sex with if you had to go against your gender preference. It had been shot down because Unique said she wouldn’t support the gender binary and Blaine had pointed out that it didn’t work for people who were bisexual, like Brittany. Or Ryder, holy shit.

It wasn’t the kind of question you could just ignore. You had to be prepared for these scenarios - gender binary or no.

When the question had first been posed, Jake’s first thoughts had been of Blaine or Kurt, naturally. They were into guys, and who wanted to get it on with someone who wasn’t going to be into it? Plus both of them had experience on their side. Given a choice between the two, Jake would go with Blaine, because he didn’t really know Kurt very much. But to be honest either one was too gooey romantic for Jake’s taste. He didn’t want his partner going all goopy on him, or - god forbid - crying. He bet Blaine was a sex cryer. And anyway, he hadn’t seen either of them since Blaine’s bottle spin landed on Kurt and they just hadn’t stopped kissing, bringing a game to a halting stop. And then a little while ago Mercedes had come downstairs looking charmed and announced that nobody should attempt to go in the coat closet, which had seemed a bit random at the time, but...the point was: you couldn’t get it on with someone who was off getting it on with someone else. So.

Jake felt like a jerk, but he knew he could eliminate Artie from the running, too. This was going to be his first time with a dude, and that was difficult enough. He didn’t want the added complication of having to work out the mechanics of sex with someone in a wheelchair. Sorry, Artie. 

Joe was handsome enough, but they didn’t know each other too well. The guy hardly ever said anything, and it kind of freaked Jake out. How would he know if they were compatible if they didn’t talk? The same went for Jess and the newer New Directions like Eric and Geoff. Jake didn’t know any of those guys well enough to be climbing into bed with them.

That Mike guy was a dancer like Jake, and they’d bonded a bit over that in the past. At the risk of being cocky, Jake tended to believe that good dancers tended to make for good lovers. But by the same token, Mike wouldn’t be as impressed as most by Jake’s whole buff and bendy thing. And Jake was going to need every advantage he could get if he was going to try to pleasure a straight dude.

But. It didn’t have to be a straight dude, did it? Because there was still Ryder. Ryder wasn’t straight. 

Ryder didn’t actually have experience with having sex with dudes - unless there was even more he wasn’t sharing - but he had kissed them and he was at least generally into them and Jake was sure that together they could figure the rest out. They were best friends, after all. They did everything together. And they knew each other, so it would work. There wouldn’t be any unpleasant surprises. Like, Jake was pretty sure he knew what Ryder...liked (or he had thought he did, even though it turned out he didn’t know half of it). But best bros always let best bros know when noteworthy things happened in their sex lives, so they’d had, you know - discussions. And bros let bros know when they found good porn (t was just the thoughtful thing to do!), so Jake knew enough about Ryder’s “tastes”. So, yeah, it would work with Ryder.

There was still Sam, too. That could be ok. They were pretty good friends and Sam was a cool guy. He was best friends with Blaine, so he might know a thing or two about dudes gettin’ it on with dudes. Since best friends talked about these things. And everyone knew that Sam was an attractive guy. So that could be ok.

But it wasn’t like Ryder didn’t have anything to offer looks-wise. He had, you know, a smile and his hair was, like, shiny and shit. And he had a good body. Jake, as Ryder’s lifting partner, had a reason to take interest in Ryder’s muscles.

* * *

_11:00pm_  
Jake felt angry, but he didn’t know why. He wished he could fight someone. That was what he had done in freshman year when he had been mad for no reason. He’d just pick the first guy to look at him funny and start beating on him. But then he’d feel kind of like a dick about it. He’d tried just egging them on until the other guy took the first swing, because second swings felt less dickish than first ones. And he’d tried just beating on furniture and music stands and stuff, because what’s the harm in that, right? But people still acted like he was a dick for it and now he actually had friends he didn’t want to think that about him. And those friends were the only people around right now, so there wasn’t anyone to beat on even if he hadn’t given all that up. 

He and Ryder did beat on each other sometimes when they had beef, or they used to. That was all before Jake sprained Ryder’s wrist that one time and felt so bad about it that they learned how to just talk to each other when beef happened. Jake wondered if maybe Ryder would fight with him just this once for old time’s sake, since they were drunk and everything. Help an angry bro out. That was probably a weird thing to ask for. Jake was in the middle of deciding that he was probably just drunk, not mad, when Ryder and Marley flopped down on either side of him.

“Jake. What are you doing lying over here in the corner?” Marley teased “It’s kind of very weird”

Jake dug his elbows in the soft carpet and pushed himself into a half sitting position. He looked down at all of their socked feet sticking up in a row. What was weird was how 90% of the time you spent with your friends you were all out in the world or at school, wearing shoes, and then every once in a while you came to a party and you were all in your socks.

Jake thought if he told Marley that he was angry she would tell him to sing about his feelings. 

“I want to do karaoke.” he said

“Dude, yes.” Ryder enthused “Let’s do Simon and Garfunkel”

“I want to do something angry.”

“‘m not feeling the angry song right now.” 

“Will you do angry karaoke with me?” Jake asked Marley, and she laughed and poked him on the nose.

“Of course I will. You’re adorable when you try to do angry.” She stood up and pulled a scowling Jake to his feet. 

* * *

_11:30pm_  
Dammit, Jake didn’t want Ryder to think he had some kind of problem with him kissing dudes. He thought maybe that was the reason he was angry, but that didn’t make much sense. And anyway, he’d sung his feelings, which meant he wasn’t angry anymore. That was how it worked, right? 

Jake should have been the one to land on Blaine in spin the bottle. Then Ryder would know that he was cool with it. Then they would be even, basically. But it didn’t make any sense for Jake to be jealous of Ryder getting to kiss Blaine. Jake was pretty sure he felt jealous, though. It was like how he had felt back when Ryder and Marley were going out.

He went to get another drink.

* * *

_12:10am_  
Jake thought maybe what he was feeling was, in fact, anticipation. He knew it wasn’t actually New Year’s Eve, but he still had that feeling like he was on the verge of a something new. High school graduation was only six months away. Things were going to happen soon.

Jake was feeling cheered up enough to go find Ryder and ask if he still wanted to sing that Simon and Garfunkel duet, which of course he did. When they got up to sing, though, Marley took over the karaoke machine and queued up It Won’t Be Long by the Beatles instead, complaining that Simon and Garfunkel would be too mellow for a New Year’s Eve party.

* * *

_12:00am_  
The clock struck midnight and Jake wrapped Marley up in a grinning kiss. He was glad she’s his date for this party, even though it wasn’t really the new year yet. It was still nice to have someone to kiss. He didn’t know if they would still be “on again” when December 31st rolled around, but they had broken up and gotten back together enough times over the years that there was no point getting worked up about which one it is any given week. They barely even bothered keeping track anymore. 

It used to be hell, and both Unique and Ryder had lost many hours of sleep staying up to comfort their respective best friends after this fight or that breakup - except of course for the one Ryder was directly involved in. Losing his best friend and his girlfriend at the same time had sucked hard. Puck had taken him out drinking and then in the middle of the night Jake had shown up, hammered, at Ryder’s house and - well, that was the night the sprained wrist happened. What followed was hours of sitting in the emergency room waiting to find out that it was in fact a sprain and not a break like they had thought. Hours for Jake to sober up with terrible hospital coffee and hours for Ryder to yell in Jake’s defense against his parents’ insistence that he was a bad guy and a worse friend and not someone they wanted Ryder hanging around with anymore. It had been a terrible night, but they weren’t fighting anymore by the end of it. 

* * *

_9:45pm_  
“Let’s play a game” Santana said, draping herself over the arms of an old leather chair “Let’s play ‘who would you switch teams for?’”

“How do you…?” asked Joe

“Straight people say who they would go gay for. Gay people say who they would go straight for.” Sam explained, waving around a decapitated gingerbread man

“Santana, can we not do this today?” Quinn said warily. 

“And it has to be someone at this party!” Sanana said, glaring first at Quinn and then inexplicably at Rachel.

“Wait, isn’t that a bit exclusionary?” Blaine said “What about bisexual people, for example?”

“And what about those of us who don’t conform to your feeble ideas of gender and sexuality?” Jess demanded.

Jake crept awkwardly over to the drinks table as an argument broke out. Santana and Jess were yelling at each other in Spanish and Blaine was earnestly trying to educate no-one in particular about heteronormativity and bisexual erasure. As far as Jake could tell some of the group had already launched into the game, with Tina announcing that Santana was her pick, hands down, and Sam demanding that all the guys declare any hidden tattoos or piercings before he made his final decision.

In the end Rachel disappeared upstairs for a moment and then came bounding back, shushing everyone and brandishing an empty bottle and chess board. She announced that they were playing spin the bottle instead, which everyone seemed perfectly happy to go along with.

Jake downed his drink before joining the circle, sitting cross-legged between Marley and Kitty. Santana insisted that Rachel spin first. Jake dug his fingers into the carpet and tried to calculate the chances of any given spin landing on him, but mental math wasn’t his strongest suit even when he was completely sober. Plus it occurred to him that some parts of the circle were more densely packed than others and there were probably some other factors to consider with the way the bottle was spun and the surface and everything, so he quickly gave up and just cheered along with everyone else.

Everyone laughed when Rachel’s spin ended up landing on Kurt. He rolled his eyes but allowed Rachel to plant a chaste kiss on him, and smiled affectionately at her as she exclaimed “What’s a little spit shared between platonic soul mates?”

Then Kurt had to kiss Eric and Eric had to kiss Kitty. Kitty kissed Artie and Artie kissed Sugar who kissed Mike. Jake’s head was spinning trying to calculate the social implications of all of these kisses given the group’s complicated dating history, half of which he hadn’t been around to witness. Jake was still trying to remember if there had been an official verdict on Eric’s sexuality and watching in amusement at the silly dance Sugar was doing when he realized he had lost track of the game. He returned his attention to the centre of the circle to see Ryder in a liplock with Blaine. Suddenly he felt very warm, and the kiss wasn’t over yet. Blaine’s hand, cupped against Ryder’s jaw, obscured Jake’s view somewhat, but he began to suspect that someone was slipping someone the tongue. He wondered if he should look away but he...wasn’t. But then Ryder and Blaine were exiting each other’s personal space and returning to their spots on the carpet. Blaine was spinning the bottle and kissing Brittany, and Jake was left wondering who else Ryder had been kissing before Blaine while Jake hadn’t been paying attention.

* * *

_?:??am_  
The party had wound itself down and most of the old New Directions who were staying the night had taken over the basement with blanket nests, driving the others upstairs to wait for Designated Driver Joe to come back and chauffeur them home. Jake and Marley were waiting on the stairs in Rachel’s front hall to be taken back to Marley’s empty house. Jake must have nodded off for a while because he opened his eyes to find his face planted against the foyer’s textured wallpaper. The room was now empty except for him, Marley, and Ryder. Marley was laughing quietly at something that Ryder must have just said.

“Wha’so funny?’” he mumbled

Marley rubbed the top of his head affectionately and said “Ryder says you look like a tetris piece when you sleep.”

Jake rearranged his limbs into a more civilized configuration and transferred his heavy head to Marley’s shoulder. His sleep addled thoughts wandered back to the day in November when he’d come to school after staying up all night. Ryder had spent it amusedly catching Jake in increasingly uncomfortable napping positions: bent over the drum set in the choir room, folded across several seats in the auditorium, reclining backwards on an exercise bike in the weights room, crumpled in a heap of sports equipment. 

Jake nodded off again to the sound of Marley and Ryder’s hushed voices. It could have been one minute or twenty later when Marley’s shoulder disappeared from its convenient position under Jake’s head. Jake sleepily allowed her to transfer his weight on to a warm surface that was pleasantly wider and higher up than the last. 

Jake smiled and burrowed his face into his comfortable new pillow as Marley pressed a kiss to his temple and murmured “Here, have a Ryder shoulder”

It didn’t fully register until the sound of the basement door clicking shut startled Jake’s eyes open and Ryder’s neck filled his field of vision. He tried to remember if he had actually just been nuzzling his best bro, and wondered if he could pretend to still be asleep. He did not want to acknowledge what was happening, and besides - he was quite comfortable. Maybe he could just go back to sleep.

But Ryder must have been able to sense that Jake was awake, because he turned his head and suddenly his amused smile was much too close and Jake could see the stubble on his face in too much detail. Jake jerked upright and scooted back over toward the wall. Was he blushing? He felt like he was. It was just the alcohol but would Ryder think it was because of him? Jake buried his face in his hands, avoiding Ryder’s gaze.

“Where’d Marley go?” Jake asked his palms

“Tina called her back downstairs” Ryder said in a strange tone

“Sorry” Jake blurted out, lifting his head and forcing him to glance over at Ryder, who was staring at him unhappily. “Sorry.” he repeated, hoping it would get Ryder to stop making that face at him.

“Jake, what’s - I thought you said nothing was going to change.” 

“It hasn’t!” Jake insisted

“You’re being weird” Ryder said in that same tone, which Jake now identified as ‘sad’.

Jake was being weird. He didn’t know how to stop - he felt weird. 

“I’m sorry!” he said again desperately

“Why do you keep saying that?!” Ryder said unhappily

“Because I’m-” Jake stopped himself from saying ‘sorry’ again “-being weird!”

Now Ryder buried his face in his hands. “You’re not ok with me being bi” he said miserably.

“No!” Jake yelled in frustration “I’m ok with it! I’m so ok with it.” He clumsily pulled Ryder’s hands away from his face. “Stop being sad! I’m totally ok with it.”

Ryder just went back to looking at him sadly.

“What do I have to go to make you see I’m ok with it?” Jake pleaded 

“Kiss him!” came a shrill voice from the door to the basement. Jake dropped Ryder’s hands and turned to see Marley and Tina’s grinning heads poking out from behind the door.

“What?”

“I dare you to kiss him!” Tina said intensely 

“We’re not playing truth or dare” Ryder said

“We are now!” Marley cried “And we dare you to kiss Ryder!”

“I- would that work?” Jake asked Ryder. Kissing was easier than talking. Ryder shrugged.

“Just do it!!” cheered Tina

Jake just did it - he grabbed Ryder’s face with both hands and brought their mouths together before he had time to decide against it. He was vaguely aware of high pitched squealing coming from the basement doorway, but mostly he was aware of Ryder’s hair under his hands and Ryder’s mouth against his lips, and Ryder’s stubble scratching his upper lip. Kissing his best friend felt strangely natural, but then Jake did love Ryder - best bros had to love their best bros - and kissing was what you did with people you loved. Jake decided not to think any harder about it. He also decided to release Ryder because the kiss had probably gone on long enough to make his point and also to satisfy the requirements of the unfairly assigned dare.

Jake pushed himself back over against the wall and wondered what came next.

Luckily the girls seemed to know “Jake! Truth!” Tina demanded

“Uh,” he said

“Did you enjoy that kiss?” Marley exclaimed giddily “Truth!”

Saying no wasn’t even really an option - not when Jake needed Ryder to believe him when he said he was cool with Ryder kissing dudes.

“Sure, it was - awesome.” Jake said, somewhere between defensive and serene.

“Ryder!” Tina shouted, pointing “Dare!”

“I don’t think you’re playing this game right” said Ryder

“I dare you to kiss Jake.” said Marley 

Jake decided it was starting to feel very warm in this foyer. What kind of fire bulbs do they use in this house? he asked himself, staring at the way the light shone off Ryder’s hair and remembering how warm his shoulder had been under Jake’s face. He felt like he was melting into the wall a little bit. He stayed perfectly still as time stretched out long and fuzzy, like a cat stretching in the sun, and Ryder closed the distance between them until his smile was too close again and Jake had to close his eyes. Then Ryder’s mouth was on his again and everything was very warm and melty but Jake was not weirded out at all, because Jake was a good friend and if enjoying Ryder’s kissing skills was what would make things stop being weird between them then that’s what he was going to do. Jake wasn’t sure that made any sense but he wasn’t going to question it.

When Jake opened his eyes Marley was still beaming while wrapping her scarf around her neck and Tina had disappeared back downstairs. Ryder with his smiling mouth was still very close, but Jake decided that he’d rather Ryder be close and smiling than distant and sad.

The front door opened and Joe stepped inside with a cloud of icy December air that made Jake lean into the warmth of Ryder’s shoulder again.

Joe nodded at Marley, who was now zipping up her coat, and turned to Jake to ask “You’re going to her place, right?”

“He is. And we’re taking Ryder with us” Marley said with a grin.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my spoon princess for encouragement, brainstorming, and proofreading!


End file.
